Man of Goodwill: Variations on A Christmas Carol
by AleTheHOUSEwife
Summary: Christmas ghost story where House is forced to go through his crushed dreams of happiness, indelible mistakes and a possible, even darker future. Is atonement anywhere near?  hilson/huddy/house family/new team
1. Chapter 1

a/n: m'kay so I've just re-read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and thought to shape it into a House story. There's going to be ghosts, tombstones, decorated trees, dark rooms, hilson, huddy, House!Dad, and loads of contemplation... with a nice medical mystery unfolding throughout the story. Setting is a hypothetical season 8 Christmas Eve, with a parolee House who has lost or failed at pretty much everything he tried to be happy.

I plan on publishing the last chapter on Christmas Eve :)

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><p><strong>Man of Goodwill<strong>

- Variations on A Christmas Carol -  
>a House M.D. fanfiction by Ale<p>

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><p>John House was dead. There was absolutely no doubt about that. He had met the end of his long life a little more than three years earlier, on a rainy October night. He was sleeping his peaceful way to another morning, laid beside his wife, when he had quietly shifted beyond the gates of white. There had been nothing she could do for him, except to call an ambulance when she had realized he wasn't breathing anymore. But it was too late already. The next phone call had been to their son, Gregory. Whose dry comment on the event had cut the conversation in a matter of seconds.<p>

But the point is that the old man was fully part of the ranks of the deceased, and there was nothing anyone could say to deny that his only son knew that: he had reluctantly attended his funeral, and even more reluctantly signed the register of his burial, just below the wife's signature. John House's gravestone had been placed and had been exposed for three entire years to the sun and the rain and the snow, not shaken by the winds or eaten at by the damp.

Yet, his son still had chills running down his very spine whenever the time came to hear from his family: he still perceived his father's oppressive presence as if he was still among the living, and the memory of his tyrannical ways, behind which he very well succeeded in masking his fatherly affection, was a curse to his already tainted feelings toward Christmas holidays. There was just no need to revive the bitterness with a phone call to his otherwise innocent mother, whose festive mood would have been spoiled by his incapability for acceptance and peace.

House threw a glance around the office. It was almost time to close the blinds and turn the computer off, waving merry Christmas to his team. The mere idea sent a bout of sickness to his stomach: he just could not pretend he meant something he didn't. What was a 'merry' Christmas anyway? Just a day when you act like nothing in the world matters, except being seated around a table, sticking forks into the same food you will regret having eaten twenty-four hours later, while whining about your protruding stomach and the weeks it's going to take you to get back to normal. That was it: food that makes you feel nothing but guilt, and people you won't probably see until the next year. This was Christmas. A time when you remember your deceased abusive father with just a bit more resentment than the rest of the year, the exact amount that prevents you from swallowing it over, at least now that he's dead.

A time for pretending you don't see how ugly and wrong the world is, is not a time that deserves celebrating. A time requiring you to act blind just needs to pass as quickly as it can: and certainly that can't happen if you keep talking about it and living it as if it deserved to be held dear in spite of its being special.

House snorted. No, that was not like him. He just needed to go home and have a good night sleep.

Someone cracked the door open.

House raised his stare up to the entrance and saw Wilson standing in the doorframe, hands entwined, raincoat on.

"What." He exhaled.

Wilson raised his brow.

"Nothing. I'm going home. Just dropped by to say merry Christmas."

"Good for you."

"Just..." Wilson walked in and reached the desk. He leaned forward against the backrest of a chair, facing House. "I've got a patient."

House sat back.

"You've got lots of them."

"Yeah. This one though... She's been worrying me."

"You already went through this. Cancer girlfriend is not a keeper. It's not even something to begin with. And you're a professional."

"Since when you're concerned about my image?"

"Well, you know. If you lose your job over this who am I going to steal lunch from?"

"Yes, that must be it." Wilson went silent for a few seconds, but then it looked as if he had just realized they had gone off topic. He spread his arms.

"What the... Shut up, House. My patient is six months old."

"Oh. 'Kay then."

"I need a consult."

"On a cancer patient."

"Yes."

"No."

"Oh, come on!" Wilson raised his stare. "House. It might be an interesting case. And there's a baby girl whose life's hanging on by a..."

"That's always the case!" House muttered. He stood up and went for the blinds. The office went dark, except for the desk lamp still shining light onto his papers. He turned back to Wilson. "You don't need a consult. It's cancer: boring. What else do you need to know?"

"I think you might find this interesting. Her x-rays showed mild deformations in her hip-bones..."

"Okay. Bone cancer is extremely rare in infants this age. This is none of my business."

"She has kidney cancer."

"Fine, then tell her mom she _also_ has hip dysplasia. The other one thing she has is going to kill her anyway."

"House. She's just a baby."

"I know your kids. They're all brave, every story is a story of courage. Guess the majority of them is just crapping their pants like everyone else... but this doesn't sell health magazines."

"Don't be a jerk."

House lowered his stare. For a moment he felt as if somewhere inside him he wasn't even sure whether or not he believed what his lips were saying. But it was a momentarily hesitation. His tone was slightly less certain when he addressed Wilson again.

"It's just not a case for me, I'm sorry."

Wilson grabbed his handbag from the floor and turned to leave. But then again, he turned to House.

"Hey, look..."

"What."

"Why don't you come over for Christmas?"

"Don't you have anyone else to spend it with?"

"Actually, I would like to spend it with you _as well_."

"No."

"But why."

"I said no. It's me, don't take it personally. I'm sure your eggnog is fine."

"Come on, House. You're going to be alone. _On Christmas day_."

House slammed his cane onto the desk, knocking over his red ball and a couple of pens and books.

"What's with you and Christmas? You're even Jewish, for god's sake. Leave me alone."

"Please, come. I'm not asking another time, but..."

"Why do you care so much about me, Wilson?"

Wilson dropped his arms.

"Okay, leave it alone. I just _happen_ to care about you. And Christmas is... nice. A nice time to be friends. Say what you want," He held up a hand. "but I'm happy with my hypocrite display of love on the day that fake Messiah was born."

This time he really walked out.

"Merry Christmas, House."

"Yeah, yeah. You too." House exhaled.

_Merry Christmas, Wilson. I'm happy we're best friends and I love you._ Wilson mumbled to himself. Soon after, he was revving the engine of his car, clapping his hands to warm them up a bit. Princeton was slowly being covered in snow.

–

"House?" Foreman's voice echoed in the silence of the office.

House was napping on his lounge chair, waiting for the team to show up so they could be dismissed. It was almost time to finally go home and do whatever one likes to do on a winter night. Like, burying yourself alive in your bed with an insane amount of opioids in your blood stream.

"Look who doesn't have a life." He announced.

Foreman scowled. "Look who _does_." He sarcastically replied.

"I'm fine, thanks. I'm not going to ask your permission to go to the Mass or anything."

"I didn't come here to offer it."

"Then how can I help you?"

"We're raising money. Christmas charity."

"Yeah." House sneered at him.

"Every Head of department is contributing. Cuddy did it every year, you always gave her money."

"Cuddy's not here anymore."

"Are you in or not?"

"No, I'm not."

"Too bad you just can't be nice."

House sat up.

"Too bad you can't do anything which doesn't benefit someone _while_ speaking volumes of your _prodigality_ as a Dean."

"Oh, come on..." Foreman shook his head. "Why do you care? It's money. We'll open up another histology lab."

"Which will be the best equipped histology lab of the whole East Coast, thanks to Dean Foreman's tireless efforts and dedication."

"It'd still be the best lab."

"Answer's no. I'm a felon, on a minimum wage. This is so inappropriate."

Foreman released a deep breath.

"Fine. Merry Christmas, House. Leave the police alone tonight... Leave _me_ alone."

"Intrusive ankle monitor is intrusively ankle-monitoring."

"Yes, I'm sure of that."

"Good night."

"Good night."

–

"House. Wake up." Taub patted his boss' sleeve.

"Uh." House blinked awake once again.

"We're going home." Chase bent over him. "_Home_. 'That fine?"

"Guess so."

Half an hour had passed since Foreman's visit. The team had their clinic hours done and finished with. Their faces betrayed the impatience to go home and have a day off. Park grabbed her jacket and handbag.

"I'm going."

Before House could reply, she dashed out.

"Merry Christmas, House." Adams followed Park and disappeared down the corridor.

"Guess it leaves the three of us then." Taub wound his woolen scarf around his neck.

House slowly sat up, massaging his leg. He popped a couple pills from an amber bottle.

"Look, House..." Taub bit his lower lip. "I'm spending Christmas day with Rachel and the baby. But Ruby wants me to be with her and my _other_ kid on the 26th, at least... Do you think..."

"No."

"Come on, House. He's not gonna be of any use if he's all whiny and sad." Chase raised his brow. "It's just one day."

Taub inhaled. "Just the day after Christmas."

"Not my decision. We all have clinic on the 26th. Go tell Foreman you're not showing up for that."

"You have clinic on the 26th. This would be _us_ forging _your_ signature on the register."

"Okay. Point is," House buttoned his motorbike jacket. "You're not going to be anywhere else than here."

"House." Chase's tone was drier than before. He flashed his boss a freezing glance.

House released his breath.

"Okay, fine. See you when you're done being a parent."

"Thank you."

"Let's go." House mumbled.

They all went for the door.

House's troubled walking got him left behind, his cane tapping rhythmically onto the floor. All around him, the hospital was still fully operative, but the atmosphere looked somehow brighter, cozier, less hurried. Everyone seemed more relaxed, from those who were working on a Christmas Eve, to those who were spending it in the hospital, sick, very sick, or terminally sick. The nurses were piling plastic plates and cups on some carts, probably ready to wheel pudding around the wards; a couple of residents from Cardiology were dressed up in Santa clothes and were leaping and hopping around the giant Christmas tree standing tall in the main hall, singing out-of-tune carols with a small crowd of kids in pajamas.

House felt a tickling sensation at the bottom of his stomach. So that was how people did it. He felt even more estranged and just went for the automatic doors as fast as his only functioning leg allowed him to. He threw a last enigmatic glance at the lights of the hall.

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><p>an: soooo... what do you think? Fulfill my Christmas Wish and leave me a review :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Stave 1**

_Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold._

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><p>"Damn it." House exhaled. The road was slick, definitely too dangerous to drive on. He had almost been thrown off his motorbike at the first turn, the rear tyre shrieking as he tried to stop the vehicle without pulling the brakes, which in itself could have been even more dangerous than the ride in itself. There was a layer of ice one inch thick covering the ground: it was the result of an entire freezing, dry, sunny day and it was now being covered by the snow regardlessly falling on it.<p>

House hooked on his right leg and dragged it off the bike, withholding a bout of pain. He stood there for a few seconds, leaned against his Honda, facing the melancholy street immersed in the darkest night Princeton had seen for a long time. He had almost had an accident on a deserted, icy street, during a snowfall. What if that had really happened with no one hearing the noise, calling an ambulance? Pushing that thought away, House unlocked his cane from the side-support he'd had installed: he tried a couple of unsteady steps on the ground, testing the rubber tap of his walking stick. Turning to his motorbike, he shook his head and released his breath. He pulled a chain lock from his backpack and pushed the bike on the side of the road, securing it to the pole of a street lamp. Last, he inserted the brake lock and stood back up.

_God forbid you're not here tomorrow morning._

He was halfway home. He could do that. Well, it was certainly going to be safer than riding a Honda at the speed of light on a slick surface. More painful, perhaps. But safer. Dropping the keys back into the right pocket of his jacket, helmet hooked to his cane-free arm, House began limping his way home.

Princeton was getting foggy. The only recognizable landmarks were the lit-up windows and the Christmas decorations hanging from the roofs, the terraces and the fences. House heard the distant sound of the Cleveland tower bells chiming seven o'clock, shortly followed by the first festive notes coming from the Cathedral in a merry banter with the University Chapel. He raised his stare up, piercing the night with his ocean blue irises, but couldn't see any of the towers, wrapped up in mist as they were.

From time to time, he could spot a couple of house guests waiting at someone's door, chatting cheerfully as they waited to be let in by their families or friends. Walking past what appeared to be a school, he could see parents and siblings through the half-open main doors, holding cameras to record their singing children dressed in elf clothes, directed by a middle-aged teacher whom House could only see from behind the shoulders. The man was wearing a reindeer cap, which immediately directed House's thoughts to his best friend and a past Christmas, when some things in their lives were still whole and some others didn't even exist yet.

Walmart was still open: small crowds walked in and out at a festively hurried pace, carrying huge piles of last-minute gift wraps, or cottoned nature-friendly bags full of middle-class traditional Christmas food. A couple of young parents were pushing twins in a stroller: the two toddlers wore matching red woolen scarves and were giggling at something the dad was singing.

House leaned against a parked car, short of breath from the walking. He hadn't walked more than one quarter of a mile in ages, and with a snort he realized how ridiculous that was.

_Tired from a taking a stroll._ _Awesome_.

He resumed his unsteady pace, gritting his teeth with pain until he finally found himself facing the 211/B building, which – House had to acknowledge – looked very much like the old manor of every horror movie that had played in his DVR in years and years of holidays spent by him deviating the mere _atmosphere_ of Christmas from its natural course. His neighbors were clearly enjoying their night somewhere else, as no signs of life, no light or sound were coming from the ground and upper floor apartments. They were all gone. Facing the building from the curb at the opposite side of Baker street, House prepared to cross the road. At that exact, same moment, the whole line of street lights went dark with a _click_.

_Crap_.

House cautiously pointed the tip of his cane a few inches forward into the snowy ground and moved a step. Groping his way like that, he went on until he the tip of his cane hit the edge of the opposite curb. Holding up a hand ahead of his invisible body, House felt about until his fingers touched the hand rail of the front steps of his building. Climbing up the steps as slowly as he could, trying not to give in to the pain – which was dangerously boiling its way up his leg – House eventually reached the door. Then, the lights came back all of a sudden, causing him to screw his eyes closed for a second. Blinking them back open with a snort, he almost dropped the keys to the doormat.

_The knocker._

What the hell was with the knocker.

There usually wasn't much fancy in House, never had been. He was a man of science, and the only oddities his eyes had ever witnessed were the by-products of his own chemically self-induced reactions, usually triggered by his despicable habits of drug addiction, drug experimentation, drug improvisation. But this.

_For god's sake._

_The knocker. _

The knocker had always been a regular, anonymous knocker. A piece of decoration, nothing no one used these days. Nothing that you could notice just walking past the building during the day or the night. A goddamn, rusty door knocker.

By the time House got closer to have a better look at it, the knocker was back to normal. But his rational mind couldn't just erase the lingering image of it looking like the face of his own deceased father.

House stood puzzled for a few seconds, then he just turned the key into the hole and walked in.

–

He dropped his backpack and helmet onto a chair and tossed his biker leath away. He was so tired: tired and _empty_. Inside. It was all a maze for rats, a meaningless, hollow, loop. Nothing really mattered for him that night: it was as if something different had happened, but in fact it hadn't. It was just nine o'clock for the millionth time in his life, and nothing was different. Not anymore. House sat down on the couch and tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling: tonight, it could all go to hell with a bang and he wouldn't care. His beating heart, his pain, Wilson, the charity, Taub's parental issues. He was indifferent to every bit of it all. He was indifferent to _himself_: feeling nauseous, House realized that his last Vicodin bottle was hopelessly empty. He should have asked Wilson for a new prescription. Asked or forged, that didn't matter. What mattered was that he had never gone back to his old habit of keeping secret stashes hidden all over his place and this was the result: no Vicodin at all. Why wasn't he hiding pills everywhere anymore? He was mesmerized by this little, stinging realization: he had been an addict, come clean and become an addict again, multiple times. Once, he had the strength to stay clean for two years: at first, he had done it for himself only, but then he had done it for love.

_Stupid_.

By the way, he had relapsed once again, and nothing had been the same ever again. He wasn't back to where he stood before. He was _beyond_ that, on a whole new level. Because if he had once felt ashamed of his dependance, now he was constantly being crushed by the deafening clash between the need he had for the pills and the hate they elicited from him. He had resurfaced from the depth of his pain just to drown back and deeper, with his eyes still fixed on the lights of the world above, which was now maliciously unreachable.

The house was so cold, dark and melancholy that it seemed as if no one had lived there for ten years. In the dark, House could see the intermitting lights of Christmas bouncing on the walls and floor of his living room from the outside buildings. And then, one light just _didn't_ go off.

_What the hell is this._

It was just a shadow, weirdly shaped and moving. But no more than a stupid shadow. The air got colder: as House reached out his hand to switch the table lamp on, he felt like dipping his fingers into an icy liquid. He flicked the switch, but nothing happened. Instead, the silence grew so intense that it was almost loud.  
>Then again, that <em>thing<em>. Half light, half shadow. Transparent. Persistent. House felt chilly. He stood up and grabbed his cane, reaching for the wall switch.

"Damn lamp."

"I'm afraid it's going to be dark in here."

House startled. He turned back, threw a look behind his shoulders and all around him.

_What. The..._

"Sit down, son."

_Hell._

"Sit down."

Some invisible force pushed House's body back down on the couch.

_This is not happening. Not again._

He couldn't be hallucinating. He hadn't taken that much Vicodin. Yet, someone was talking to him. He was hearing voices, seeing nothing but shadows and intermitting light glares.

"Does it hurt?"

That voice. House's wide-eyed stare wandered in the dark. He was scared, and alone. No one would answer an emergency call from him on Christmas Eve. Not even Wilson, who was on call that night. No one had time for him, or cared enough. He didn't deserve _caring_.

"Greg."

_Dad._

"Does it hurt?"

House's breath got faster. He felt chills running down his spine. Of all people, why his father? He could've taken Cuddy, Amber, some random dead patient. But not this. He groped his way to the cordless phone, which he remembered being somewhere on the coffee table, but he couldn't find it. He tossed the woolen blanket away and looked for it among the pillows and the books keeping him company on the couch. No phone. He sat back.

"Don't be scared."

"Go away."

Great. So now he was talking to a hallucination. Not that being back on drugs was a success of his therapy and rehabilitation process, but talking to hallucinations was even worse than that.

"I could."

"Go then."

The shadow trembled and got lighter for the fraction of a second. The room was lit up by a silvery dazzle that quickly burnt away.

"Don't do this." The shadow's voice was coming from all around him.

"Do what?"

"Don't push me away."

House felt incredibly scared and incredibly stupid at the same time. He folded his hands in his lap.

"Okay then. I'm glad to see you, dad. Let's watch a baseball game."

"I wish we could."

"Oh, come _on_." House snorted. "You were never there for things like that. You hated it."

"I did."

The shadow got thinner and smaller, as if some kind of regret was making it shrink.

"There's no need to revive the awkwardness then." House remarked.

"No, there's not. Does it hurt?"

"_Again_. You're my own projection, don't ask about stuff you know already."

"I want to hear your voice: say it."

"It hurts."

"I know it does."

House shook his head. "This is ridiculous."

"Is it?"

"Yes."

"Gregory..."

"_Dad_."

"I'm dead."

"I know better. Pinched your ear to get a blood sample from your coffin."

"I already know the answer. Like you did."

"It didn't change a thing. I still hate you even though I don't share a single gene with you."

"I'm sorry. I knew you were different and I couldn't handle you."

"You're dead. I screwed myself up enough _after_ you. Doesn't matter anymore."

"I guess it does."

"What for?"

"For you."

"I can't even see you, while taking advice from you?" House sarcastically replied.

The shadow got closer. House felt crushed by it's _weight_. All the warmth in his body had flown away. He was drained and freezing.

"Because you made mistakes, like I did."

"I am not you." House whispered. His back was glued to the backrest of the couch, and he was sweating despite the cold.

"You made mistakes."

"I am _not_ like you."

"Are you sure?" The shadow overwhelmed House in all its shapeless height.

"_I am not like you!_" He bawled, his palms spread open onto the leather seat.

"Prove it."

The table lamp clicked on: the shadow and the cold were completely gone. As the phone rang, House found his fingers somehow wrapped around the receiver. He brought it to his ear, slowly.

"H-hello." He stuttered, his voice down to a whisper.

"Hi. It's Amber."

The lights went off again.

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><p>AN Stave 2... coming soon! House takes a trip to his past.


	3. Chapter 3

**Stave 2**

The Ghost of Christmas Past

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><p>"I missed you." Amber's voice was soothing, whispery. House dropped the receiver, his back completely soaked in cold sweat.<p>

"Go away." He panted, but his words were almost inaudible.

"I love keeping you company."

She was _everywhere_. Her voice emanated from the very air he breathed, from the cold walls surrounding him. She was in the wind shaking the trees in the street and making the snowflakes whirl about. She was inside and out his world and his soul. House's fingers were scratching the leathered couch without him even noticing. He was petrified.

"What the hell is this..."

"It's _me_. I'm here."

"You're not..." House had to catch his breath. "You're not real."

"I am." Amber sounded almost offended. "I am your reality."

"I don't want this."

"Oh, come on."

"I can't see you."

"Yet."

House's breathing was now fully frantic. He let out a moan.

"It... hurts."

"Oh, does it?" She pouted. She _pouted_ at him. Because now Amber was an image in flesh and bones, her stare fixed into his just a few inches from his face. He could feel her weight on his legs.

"I can't... I can't take this." He grimaced in pain.

"House..." She lifted her right hand and touched his cheek, tilting her head aside. Her blue eyes were sending glares, and the large sleeves of the see-through dress she wore were waving in some kind of a wind only she could perceive.

"House." She whispered again.

"Go away. Please."

"This is..." Amber got closer, her lips almost touching his. "_Unexpected_."

She ran the tip of her finger on the lobe of his left ear.

"W-What."

"You. Begging. What a _faux pas_." She giggled and sat up, folding her hands as her expression got serious. "You got lame. So _not_ your style."

"This is crazy."

"I'm so-o-oh disappointed in you-u-u..." She chanted in a hypnotic pitch, swaying back and forth.

"I can't take any more of this."

"I bet you can't." She nodded, in a condescending tone. "That girl really got to you. She made you weak."

"Leave Cuddy out of it."

"I'm _so_ sorry." Amber pouted. "But I can't!" She clapped her hands, giggling. Her eyes weren't smiling.

"Leave her out."

"Oh, but she's the one who hurt my boy... My tough little..." She lowered her stare, and her left hand shifted down to his right thigh. "..._Boy_."

House closed his eyes and threw his head back.

"Stop it." He cried.

"_Don't beg_." She ordered, her voice now resounding steady in the silent room. "You're so... weak. You used to be stronger. _Braver_."

"I'm not brave. Never was."

"I don't like _this_." Amber hissed. "You are a disappointment. _She_ weakened my little soldier."

"Go away. Go." House whispered.

"Your father was right. You _are_ a failure, eternally discontent and oh-so whiny. I pity you." She nodded. "I really do. Poor, sick _sod_..."

"Stop." House couldn't almost hear himself.

"You're not even _human_." Amber remarked, pointing her index finger to his chest. The mere touch gave him a twinge.

"_Go. Away_!" He cried, panting heavily as the tears rolled down his cheeks in an uncontrollable stream. It was like his hallucinatory detox night, right before Mayfield. He was out of his mind, devastated by the knowledge that the spasms and stings in his leg were as real as they were invincible. He was giving in to the pain without any more hiding and suppressing and dissimulating. The pain was unbearable, he was wrapped in it. Some of his sufferance, though, was coming from inside: he _was_ a failure. Amber, the only voice that spoke the truth inside him, the truth that came from his own irrational mind, was right that he had gotten weaker. She incarnated the verity of his hidden fears, of the realizations he oh-so carefully pushed aside at every break of day.

House felt like he was choking on his own self loathing and inspired noisily, blinking his eyes wide open.

This was when he realized he wasn't in his living room anymore. He turned aside and back a couple times, puzzled.

–

_I know what this is._

Two little boys were playing in the snow, sticking twigs into the round body of a snowman. A girl was dancing around, hopping and leaping as she sang a cheerful song about the winter.

"...Gone away is the bluebird, here to stay here's a new bird... He sings a love song, as we go along..." She spread her arms and plopped down into the snow. "...Walking in a winter wonderland!"

"Shut up, Jenny!" The blonde boy in a red scarf threw her a snowball. "You were out of tune."

"I'm not out of tune! I can sing!"

"Tom said you sang for him yesterday."

"That's not true!" Tom turned back to his friends, hands on his hips. He had red cheeks and a funny woolen cap too large for his head. He blushed.

"Jenny loves Tom. Jenny loves Tom!" The boy with the red scarf began throwing snowballs at everyone. A battle began.

House flashed a glance around. He was standing in what looked like a residential neighborhood. The three children were playing in the street, which was surrounded by two parallel rows of terraced houses with brick red walls and Christmas lights decorating the doors. There was a lot of snow covering the curbs and the front steps; from the chimney tops, black smoke was flying its way up to a gray, cloudy sky. But this wasn't all about the setting. At the end of the street, instead of another, perpendicular road with traffic lights, House could spot intermitting yellow lights on top of a green, iron gate. Beside it, four vehicles were parked: an ambulance, a pick-up truck and two cars. All of them were painted in a greenish tone, with a familiar logo on both sides. House knew what that was: his suspicions were confirmed when a tall, thin man in a military suit and red slippers came out in the snow from one of the buildings, standing on the front steps.

"Jenny. It's lunch time, baby. Come on in."

The little girl stood up and wiped the snow off her clothes.

"Five more minutes, daddy. Please!"

"Fine, but I want you inside in five minutes. Where's Greg, by the way?"

The three children exchanged looks.

"Not here." Tom said calmly.

"Mrs. House is looking for him." The man replied.

"He'll come back." Jenny collected her ball and a single glove from the snowy ground. "_Eventually_."

"Guys." Jenny's father came down in the snow, throwing a quick glance at his slippers, wetting inexorably. "This is serious. Greg's mom wants him home. She's worried for him."

"We don't know." The other boy left the snowman and crossed his arms. "He was angry."

Silence fell.

The military man shook his head and released his breath. "Dear lord, that boy." He whispered.

"Dad?" Jenny walked to him and took his hand. "Daddy?"

"Yes, babe."

"I love you, dad."

He raised his brow in surprise, then smiled. He leant forward and kissed her head, before placing both hands on her shoulders. He led their way inside. Right before closing the door, he flashed a concerned look at the front window of the house next his. Blythe House was looking out, her expression betraying some sort of guilt mixed with the same concern in the man's eyes. The two exchanged a significant look, before he shut the door closed behind him.

_Hi dad._

House was surprised at the thought and sight of this man. His real father. Who, in about two or three years, would have left the army to become a pastor. He was concerned for he had gone missing. He must have known, or at least suspected, that the child was his blood. And from the glance he had just flashed at Blythe, he was clearly still in love with her.

_Change of scene. Interiors. And... Cut._

House stood inside an empty classroom. A giant map depicted a Cold War Europe with a giant area marked _URSS_ and an enlarged side frame dedicated to Her Majesty's Kingdom. That's where he was. John House had been stationed in London for a couple years, right before his Japan deployment, which had covered his son's teen age up to college.

_Egypt, Italy, Romania... Great Britain. Japan. Pack and go. Leave behind, walk ahead._

The classroom was a bit dusty but cozy in the end. Four rows of wooden tables with just one person seated at one of them, reading. _Writing_.

_What the hell was I doing._

House got closer to his younger self. He was a pretty boy. Blonde-ish, pale. Very thin, pretty tall. He wore a dark blue woolen cap and a matched scarf on a leathered brown jacket which seemed to make him warm enough to cause his cheeks to blush a little. With shaky fingers, the little boy was writing on what seemed to be a diary.

_A diary. Jeez. _

The boy dropped the pen and stood still, elbows pointed against the wooden table, hands on his cheeks. Silent tears rolled down his face, but he quickly wiped them off with a restless movement of the back of his right hand. He slammed the notebook closed and sat back, staring at the empty blackboard ahead of him.

_Spheres. Small, equally sized spheres. There's a huge, empty container. I need to stuff the spheres into it, but if I don't do it right, not all of them will fit in. What do I do. What do I do to put all the spheres inside... to maximize the density._

_Maximize._

_Density. It's density. There is space between the spheres. I need to know how to reduce it._

_What do I do._

The boy's eyes were fully lost into an ocean of thoughts.

_Dropping them in randomly won't do. I need a pattern._

He ran his index finger onto the surface of the table, drawing invisible circles.

_Pack them together somehow. Somehow. But how? Pack them... like... a hexagon? Like the oranges in Gareth's shops. And then what._

The boy's stare shone bright for a second. He jumped to his feet and went for the chalk. He drew a series of circles and then another layer, coloring inside the borders of the second one so he could distinguish between the two. The second layer filled the empty spaces between the spheres placed in the first one. And a third layer drawn in red chalk filled the empty spaces of the second one.

It was perfect. It was rational.

The boy stood still in front of the blackboard.

_I need to tell dad. He's gonna be proud._

But right after this thought of his young self had stealthily traveled to House's mind, he could see the boy's expression saddening all of a sudden, the chalk rolling aimlessly on the floor.

_Dad's not talking to me. Dad hates me. _

He slid down on his knees, swaying back and forth with his arms folded on his chest.

_He hates me. He hates me. He hates. Me._

His velvet trousers uncovered a small portion of the skin on his calves. House didn't need a look to remember. The skin was bruised, cracked. There was a layer of healing strains underneath another of fresh ones. His ankles had been burnt by the ice where the skin had frozen solid and then cracked after the whole two hours he had spent standing in the snow barefoot, fair punishment for the ungrateful son he was, coming late to breakfast after staying up late to practice his piano exercises.

_I'm ungrateful. He hates me. He's right. I..._

Again, the child's cheeks blushed from the restrained tears. But this time, House felt his own face burning from the imperative need to cry out at how unfair this was.

_I don't..._

The boy couldn't go any further. Deep inside, House knew he couldn't continue the sentence. Because it wasn't true that he didn't deserve his father's love. Even the younger House knew that this was false and pretentious, that he was a compensatory strategy brought in in rescue of his rational mind, which could justify what had been inflicted to him just by finding a reason why.

_I hate him. He's not my dad. I don't have a dad._

This.

This had been the first pinch. From that moment on, he had gone as far as looking for the physical signs that John wasn't his father. But this would have taken years. Right now, the angry, hurt boy rocking himself until he fell asleep on the floor was just compensating again for his unfair sufferings, this time with a healthier excuse. But still, compensating.

They had found him the morning after, close to a hypothermic crisis due to the lack of heating in the school building closed down for the Christmas break. No one had looked at the blackboard to realize that 9 year-old Gregory House had come to the same solution for the problem of the spheres that Kepler had proposed. And both of them would have been proved right three decades later, when the kid being rushed to the hospital was already a world famous scientist, and about as bold and audacious as the German mathematician from the Sixteenth century, and certainly a daredevil of substance.

Since little Gregory House had ran away barefoot, with the jacket on his pajamas, no one had raised any questions regarding his wounded feet and calves. He had clearly been running in the snow, that was it.

_London can be merciless in the winter. And these modern children, oh dear. We must all keep a better eye on them, that's for sure. The times, they are a-changing._

House closed his eyes, his mind emptied from anything, except the voice of the doctor reassuring his mother. John House was on duty up in Scotland, after leaving on the cold snowy morning his son had spent barefoot in the snow.


End file.
